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406
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
the barbaric Cosmos, and raised into an independent object of
speculation. Once “ differentiated’ it begins itself to unfold, and
at the same time to gather round it the at first alien facts of
sensation, appetite, and bodily feeling generally. These are in
creasingly matter of inquiry, and theories respecting them take the
hue and shape of the sciences which relate to the material world.
The science of motion evolves, and the idea of orderly sequence
enters into Psychology. Natural Philosophy rises from motion to
force, and Psychology passes from conjunction to causation. Che
mistry tears aside a corner of nature’s veil, and a shaft is sunk in a
mysterious field of mind. The sciences of organic nature receive
a forward impulse, and mind and life are joined in inextricable
union. A philosophy of the universe, incorporating all the
sciences, is created, and Psychology, while attaining increased
independence as regards the adjacent sciences, is merged in that
deductive science of the Knowable which has more widely
divorced, and yet more intimately united, the laws of matter
and of mind.
Art. VII.—The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
1. Deutsche Glassiker des Mittelalters, Mit Wort und SacherJcldrungen. Begriindet von Franz Pfeiffer. Erster
Band, Walther von der Vogelweide. Leipzig: F. A.
Brockhaus. 18*70.
2. Das Lehen Walthers von der Vogelweide. Leipzig : B. G.
Triibner. 1865.
TN the history of German literature no period is more inteJl resting, than that short classical epoch at the end of the twelfth
century and the beginning of the thirteenth, which gave rise to the
literature written in Middle High German. More especially does
it attract attention, because within very narrow limits it com
prises many and great names, but above all it is remarkable
because within these limits it saw the birth and death of a new
kind of poetry, a poetry of an entirely different character from
that of the old epic poems. They were grand, massive, and
objective ; the new style was light, airy, plaintive, aod subjective.
To this style belongs the German Minnesong. The songs of three
hundred Minnesingers are preserved all belonging to this short
period. In their themes there is not much variety. The changes
of the seasons, and the changes of a lover’s mood do not in fact
present a wide range of subjects to the lyric poet. And most of
the Minnesongs are confined to these. But the following simile
seems true. If any one enters a wood in summer time, and listens
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
407
to the voices of innumerable birds, he hears at first only a con
fused mixture of strains. In time, however, he distinguishes
now a petulant cry, now a deep bell-like reiterated note, and now
the unbroken song of some joyous chorister. Finally he recog
nises the individual character of each strain, the music runs
clearly in ordered threads,
“ E come in voce voce si discerne
Quan do una e ferme e l’altra va e riede.”
And the Minnesong of this period exhibits a phenomenon not
dissimilar from that described. The subjects and the songs them
selves are likely at first to seem monotonous. Lamentations at
winter, the russet woodlands, and ashen grey landscapes, no less
than the joyous welcomes to spring, are repeated over and over
again. But notwithstanding this, the German Minnesong, as the
rich and peculiar growth of an extraordinary literature, is worthy
of attention. As in the former instance so now in this forest of
song, the listener soon discovers that some notes are clearer and
more solemn than others, and that in them he may follow a
music well worthy the hearing.
The Minnesong is entirely distinct from the lyrics of the Pro
vencal Troubadours. A feminine character has been attributed
to it, and a masculine character to the songs of the South. To a
certain extent this description expresses the difference between
them, but it does so only partially. The Minnesong is certainly
more reticent and coy. It sighs deeply, it smiles and blushes;
it seldom laughs aloud. It is pervaded by an innocent shame.
But it is bold and brave too. It has a scornful contempt for
danger, a profound belief in honour and virtue, and an unutter
able longing for love and beauty.
This is how the Minnesong came to be born. When
Conrad III. led his people to the Holy Land, Louis VII. of
France brought to the same place his French hosts. There,
amidst the magnificence of the East, the German knights
and soldiers listened to the songs of the troubadours who accom
panied the French armies. The “gay science,” as the trou
badours named their art, was then in its bloom. The soldiers
of Conrad were enchanted with the soft melodies and musical
rhymes; they could not forget the rich colours and gallant
romances of the Southern singers when they went back to the
North. They felt indeed that such poetry was not for them. It
had not the deep sentiment, and that inner soul of song which
their sterner natures required. But the Minnesong sprang from
this contact of Teuton and Celt under Eastern skies.
The greatest of the Minnesingers was Walther von der
Vogelweide, with whose life and poems it is proposed to deal
ee2
�408
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
briefly in this paper. And as his works cannot be understood
without reference to the events of his life, and as those events
were controlled by the wider movements of political affairs, it
will be necessary to speak in some detail of the circumstances
which mark the decadence and follow the fall of the illustrious
Hohenstaufen dynasty.
*
. The place and date of Walther’s birth have been matters of
dispute. The former may now be considered as settled, the
second difficulty can only be approximately solved. For while
we are thrown back to Walther’s poems for most of our infor
mation in reference to the events of his life, those poems are by
no means autobiographical, and it is only partially that we can
construct a connected history of the poet’s life.
Quite as many countries have contended for the honour of
being Walther’s birthplace as strove to enrol Homer amongst
their citizens. Switzerland, Suabia, the Rhineland, Bavaria,
Bohemia, Austria, the Tyrol and others have claimed him.
There is scarcely a district of Germany that has not sought the
honour of being connected with him. All this, however, is a
point of minor interest in the face of his own words—Ze
Osterriche lernt ich singen und sagen. But as a matter of
fact the question has been recently set at rest by the discovery,
in the Royal Library at Vienna, of a MS., which shows the
revenue of the Count of Tyrol towards the end of the 13th
century. Amongst the returns therein recorded is found the
yearly sum paid by the Vogelweide estate, namely, three pounds.
This entry is between those of Mittelwald and Schellenberch,
* The first edition of Walther’s poems, founded upon the Paris MS., was
that by Bodmer and Breitinger, published at Zurich in 1758. In 183S Von
der Hagen sent out a second edition. It was of little value. The first really
critical edition was that of Carl Lachman. Wacknernagel’s edition of 18G2
was also good. Pfeiffer’s edition of 1864 is perhaps, upon the whole, the best.
Its speciality is the excellent commentary which accompanies it, but it is
admirable from every point of view. It is the first edition which has laid the
treasures of Walther’s poetry open to the ordinary German reader. The intro
duction is good, and the prefatory remarks to each poem are well and judi
ciously written. It is provided with explanatory notes, and the glossaries
and index are models of arrangement. Middle High German has been so
long the monopoly of a few students that it is desirable it should be known
that, with a fair knowledge of German, a moderate acquaintance with some
good Middle High German grammar, and Herr Pfeiffer’s book. Walther von
der Vogelweide is easily accessible to all who are interested in Minne song.
There has sprung up rapidly in the last few years a whole body of literature
around the name of Walther von der Vogelweide. Uhland’s book is perhaps
the most widely known: Pfeiffer uses it freely. The best and completest life of
the poet is that by Dr. Menzel. The book is complete and instructive, but
fails to be popularly interesting through abundance of minute historical
details. Where Menzel and Pfeiffer differ, the preference has been given
in this paper to Pfeiffer’s theories. All the references are to Pfeiffer’s edition.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
409
places ten miles apart upon the Eisach. The exact site of the
poet’s house cannot be pointed out, but a wood divided into two
parts still bears, according to investigations made in the winter
of 1863, the double name of Upper and Lower Vogelweide. Of
all the places previously suggested, this alone corresponds with
the indications which the poet gives of his early home.
There is nothing to fix the exact date of his birth; a con
sideration of his poems leads Dr. Menzel to place it earlier than
1168 by, perhaps, ten or twelve years. His life thus comprises
the period of at least sixty years, for we find him in 1228 a bowed
and venerable pilgrim from the Holy Land, ready to lay his head
in its last resting-place. These sixty years were filled by impor
tant events not uninfluenced by the poet.
It is probable that he belonged to the lower ranks of the
nobility. The name of his family and the land-tax which they
paid prevent us from ranking them with the great families of
the time. Probably, too, his childhood was passed amongst the
bowery solitudes of the Tyrol, where a free and happy boyhood,
which he never forgot, grew amid the songs of birds and the
music of waters into a manhood no less musical and free.
Somewhere between the years 1171 and 1183 Walther left
his home for the ducal Court at Vienna. It was then a general
practice for the younger sons of noble families to seek education by
such means as this, and the renown which the Court of Vienna
acquired for the splendour of its pageants and the patronage
which it bestowed upon music and poetry, made it peculiarly
attractive to a youth whose imagination had already been
awakened. And no eager dreams which Walther had dreamed
in the woods of Tyrol were to be rudely banished when he
reached the ducal Court. The star of the German empire never
shone brighter than it did at that time. Then it was that the
old Barbarossa finished his Italian wars. The Church was deve
loping her powers. Chivalry had reached its highest point and
had not begun to decline, and over all Europe swept that in
spiring breeze which hurried away warriors and priests to do
pious duty in the Holy Land. Everywhere there was a keen
atmosphere of new and large ideas. The contact with the East,
even at that time, lent more of magnificence to the national
pomp, and the great festival which Frederick celebrated in
Mayence, at Whitsuntide of the year 1184, stands out still as
the greatest national festival which Germany has celebrated.
All the spiritual and temporal lords of Germany were present.
Princes from far lands, from Italy, France, Illyria, and Sclavonia
assembled with innumerable followers. And it is no wonder if
the centre figure of such an assembly kindled then an enthu
siasm over all the Empire which has never since been extin-
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The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
guished, however hidden the sparks have lain. For, as a con
temporary averred, “ The flower of chivalry, the strength of do
minion, the greatness of the nation, and the glory of the empire
were united in his single majestic person.” With these great
events the Court of Vienna was closely connected. The Duke
Leopold VI. took the most active interest in the policy of the
Hohenstaufen dynasty, and was a conspicuous sharer in the
Mayence pageant. Nor was his own Court behind any other of
that time in such knightly display. With Leopold’s two sons,
the young and promising princes, Frederick and Leopold,
Walther was, as we may divine from later poems, upon terms
of intimacy and affection, which, at least in the case of Frederick,
never suffered change.
But if the stirring spirit of the times did much to give the
poet a love for magnificent energy, the Court at which he resided
furnished him with modes of culture which scarcely another
could. Whatever was graceful and chivalric in life flourished
here, and here the Minnesong was oftenest sung. The master
poet of this early time was Reinmar, the “ nightingale of
Hagenau,” as they delighted to call him, and in him Walther
found the best model for his poems. But it was only for the
lighter poems that Reinmar could serve as a model. Walther's
earnest political lays belong to the sphere of poetry, which
Reinmar’s flight never reached.
Yet the education which
Walther derived from his residence at the Court was gained by
no system of learned instruction, nor at that time (any more
than at present) did courtly culture deem learning requisite.
Life, action, the free circulation of ideas, and a readiness to
receive them were the means of instruction, by using which
Walther acquired the deep knowledge of mankind, and the
perfect command over artistic material which are exhibited in
his poems.
Leopold died in 1194, and was succeeded in Austria by his
son Frederick the Catholic, a youth twenty years of age. For
four years Walther enjoyed under his patronage all that a poet
and a patriot could desire, for the Empire was yet in its splendour,
which seemed to wax rather than to wane. But this splendour
was to meet with a speedy and long-lasting eclipse ; and never
again do we find in the poems of Walther the bright
and careless happiness with which they open. Henry VI. the
successor to Barbarossa, succeeded likewise to that idea of the
Empire, which filled the mind of Frederick. He swayed an
Empire greater than any since the time of Charlemagne, and
possessed qualities which rendered him likely to sway one yet
greater. Regarding himself as the heir of the old Caesars, he
deemed his Empire incomplete until all that belonged to them
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers*
411
should own him as its liege lord. Once more the East should be
won back to the West and far-away kings hold their power only
as vassals to the Kaiser. To follow out this idea, and advance
his power in the East he announced a crusade. All preparations
had been made, part of the Eastern countries had acknowledged
his authority, and much more was about to yield, when suddenly,
on the 25th of September, 1197, at Messina, Henry died.
With him died too the splendour of the German Empire; but
it was to this, as it sank lower and lower, that Walther continually
turned his gaze, and it is this which colours his political
poems, and gives them their significance in the eyes of his
countrymen. Yet it was not only the destruction of so much
glory that caused the change in the tone of Walther’s song.
With the national catastrophe his own fall at the Court of
Vienna was nearly contemporaneous. The exact cause of the
Prince’s disfavour is uncertain, but with the departure of
Frederick the Catholic, on Henry’s crusade, Leopold, who was
Regent, began to withdraw the Court patronage from Walther,
and at Frederick’s death in 1198, Walther found himself com
pelled to leave Vienna.
And here it will be well, before we follow him out into the
dark and troublous times which follow, to refer to those poems
which are associated with this period of his life—associated with
it, though it is impossible to assert with certainty that all the
songs of “ Minnedienst ” which we still have were composed
before he left Vienna.
Walther’s poems fall into two divisions. They are either
Minnesongs, such as court-singers of the time were wont to sing,
differing only in degree of excellence from contemporary lays, or
they are poems of an earnest, religious, and political tendency.
Of these latter we shall presently see something. But certainly
the greater part of the former class belong to the Vienna period.
All the fairest and freshest of these' were written before the
trouble came, and possess that charm of conscious happiness
which does not recur. And although, from the nature of the
poems, it is not possible to refer them to a fixed date, a process
of growth and development is to be traced in them. In Wal
ther’s youth court-poetry had not as yet crystallized into those
rigid forms in which development ceases. Nor was the first
inspiration of a young poet’s fancy likely to exhibit itself in the
mould of artificial excellence, at least as long as that freedom
from care, which external circumstances guaranteed, favoured a
spontaneous and happy production of works of art. For this
reason Menzel, unlike Pfeiffer, is inclined to place many of the
“ Lieder” in a later period. He is inclined to think that Walther
did not submit to conventional trammels until the necessity of
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The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
finding an audience and patrons became dominant. Be this as
it may, the songs of the early period are undoubtedly pleasing,
and amongst them may be reckoned the exquisite lyrics:—
“ Undei* der linden, an der lieide,”
and
“ So die bluomen uz dem grase dringent.”
We have altogether about eighty of Walther’s “ Lieder,” but
probably many of the earliest are lost. With those that remain,
some German critics (as was to be expected) have endeavoured
to build up a consistent history of Walther’s youth. Little
success, however, has attended the attempt, and the best critics
dismiss the autobiographical theory altogether. Nor is it
necessary to literary enjoyment that the theory should be estab
lished ; it is better to regard these exquisite poems as blossoms
of a happy period. If indeed we think of him as the laureate
of a dazzling and polite Court, the friend and favourite of a
prince only a little younger than himself, amidst the circum
stances of an Empire whose highest glory did not yet seem to
have been reached, in enjoyment of a reputation that was ever
growing, we shall be more prepared to understand the change
that came over the spirit of his verse when the Empire was
racked by internal dissension, and he himself was sent from the
light and kindliness of a Court into the uncertainty of a wander
ing life.
The condition of the Empire was now such that it might well
leave him in doubt where he should find a home. The rightful
heir to the Imperial throne, Frederich the Second, was a child
three years of age. Besides him Henry had left two brothers,
Otto of Burgundy and Philip of Suabia. Henry’s death set
free all those elements of disorder which his iron hand had kept
in subjection. The Pope would not recognise the claims of
Frederick, and Otto and Philip became competitors for the
crown. Philip was indeed willing to act as regent for the child,
but the partisans of the Hohenstaufen dynasty were cold in
their interest for Frederick, and desired to see Philip himself
Emperor. Meanwhile confusion was universal, the Empire was
wasted in a destructive war, its wealth squandered, and its
power broken. The Court of Vienna took the side of Philip,
and Walther became his poet-champion. It was now that he
commenced those poems or “Sprucke ” which were the first of
their kind, and which, repeated from mouth to mouth, exercised
considerable influence upon events. In the Paris manuscript of
his works there is a picture of the poet musing upon the disorder
of the times. He is represented as a bearded man in the prime
of life; a cap covers his curly hair; he wears a rich blue cloak
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
413
and a red coat, and looks pensively to the ground, whilst in his
right hand he holds a scroll of his poems, which winds upwards
between the escutcheon and crested helm of Vogelweide. And
in somewhat similar attitude the first “ Sprtich ” represents him.
“ I sat upon a stone and mused, one leg thrown over the other; my
elbow rested upon my knee, and upon my hand I leant my head,
cheek, and chin. There I mused with much despair what profit it
were to live now in the world. I saw no way by which a man might
win three things that are good. Two of them are Honour and
Wealth, which often injure each other. The third is God’s Favour,
which is more excellent than the two. Would that I might bring
these into one life. But, alas ! it may not be that Wealth and
Honour and God’s Favour should ever come to one heart again ; the
ways and paths are closed against them. Untruth lies in ambush;
Might rules in the highways, and Peace and Justice are wounded sore.
So the Three can come no more till the Two are healed ” (p. 81).
. To Walther, the only method of healing the wounds of Peace
And Justice seemed to be in electing Philip king. In him he
Irecognised a man strong enough and good enough to stay the
disorders of Germany. And his song gave no uncertain sound.
He says:—
“ The wild beast and the reptile, these fight many a deadly fight.
Likewise, too, the birds amongst themselves. Yet these would hold
themselves of no esteem had they not one common rule. They make
strong laws, they choose a king and a code, they appoint lords and
lieges. So woe to you, ye of the German tongue ; how fares order in
your land ? when now the very flies have their queen, and your honour
perishes ! Turn ye, turn ye. The Coronets grow your masters, the
petty kings oppress you. Let Philip wear the Orphan-diadem, and bid
the princes begone ” (pp. 81-2).
The “petty kings’' are the other competitors for the crown.
The “orphan ” is a jewel in the crown of the Roman emperors.
Albertus Magnus, according to Menzel, says of it:—“ Orphanus est lapis, qui in corona Romani imperatoris est, neque unquam alibi visus; propter quod etiam orphan us vocatur.”
Philip’s chief competitor seemed to be Berthold, of Zuriugen,
and he had on his side Adolphus, the Archbishop of Cologne ;
but as Berthold did not prove an open-handed candidate, Adol
phus entered into negotiations with Richard of England, and
(after being well paid for his trouble), consented to crown
Richard’s nephew, Otto of Poitou, on the 12th of July, 1198.
Previously to this, Otto had taken Aix-la-Chapelle, which had
refused to recognise him, and Philip seeing that there was now
no time to be lost, was crowned in the following September, at
Mayence, by the Archbishop of Treves. This coronation, subse
quently deemed insufficient, was performed with great splendour,
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The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
and gave hopes to the Hohenstaufen dynasty of once more be
holding an united empire.
The diadem of Charlemagne wherein glittered the peerless z
“ orphan” was placed upon Philip’s head, and amongst those
who swelled the train of the young King and his wife Irene was
Walther. The crown, said Walther, seemed made for him.
“ Older though it be than the king, yet never smith wrought crown
to fit so well. And his imperial head no less becomes the diadem, and
none may part the twain. Each lights the other. The crown is
■brighter by its sweet young wearer, for the jewels gladly shine upon
the true prince. Ah! if any one doubts now to whom the Empire
belongs of right, let him but see if the ‘ Orphan’’ so shines upon
another brow. This jewel is a star that finds the true prince.”
Walther’s enthusiasm for the “sweet young” king seems justi
fied by contemporary evidence. An old chronicle says with quaint
.Latinity ;—“ Erat Phillippus animo lenis, mente mitis, erga homi
nes benignus, debilis quidem corpore, sed satis virilis in quantum
confidere poterat de viribus suorum, facie venusta et decora,
capillo flavo, statura mediocri, magis tenui quam grossa.”
We have, however, now two emperors ou the stage. The
Chronicle has described Philip: Otto presented a complete contrast
to the gentle brother of Henry. Nearly the same age as his
rival, he was a man of lofty and commanding stature and
resembled both in person and character his uncle Richard.
His bravery was rash and impetuous, and his unyielding
severity alienated more hearts than his courage could retain.
The literary tastes of the two Emperors exhibited a contrast
no less striking than that presented by their persons. Otto
listened with pleasure to the masculine strains of the Trouba
dours. Philip heard with delight the soft complaining rhymes of
the Minnesingers. It was by these rhymes that Walther won
the favour of Philip and found admission to his court. But there
was need of something else to be done than to listen to the
strains of troubadour or minnesinger, before either of the rival
Emperors could deem his empire safe. Philip had the wider
support, and Otto, perhaps, the more valuable foreign assistance.
Philip had on his side all South Germany, Bohemia, and Saxony.
He was supported, moreover, by many Episcopal princes both in
the south and in the north. Abroad France was his ally. The
centre of Otto’s power was Cologne, then the chief town of Ger
many, and though his kingdom was more contracted than that
of Philip, the inequality was rendered less dangerous by the effi
cient help which his uncle Richard of England was ready to
supply. Thus all Europe was divided into two parts awaiting
the decision of its destiny. This seemed to hang upon the word
a power which had not yet spoken the Papacy.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
415
Now Walther saw clearly enough, nor yet more clearly than the
Pope himself, that whatever dissensions arose between native
princes, the real antagonistic power to the German Empire was
the papal supremacy. For a man now sat upon the papal chair
whose ambition was even more imperial than that of Henry VI.,
and who possessed an energy of character and a subtle power of
statecraft that seemed likely to bring his designs into effect.
Innocent III. had inherited the ambition and the ideas of
Gregory VII. With him he looked upon the Pope as the
rightful source of all power, as above all kings, emperors and
princes, who received from him their unction and their virtue,
and who held their possessions as vassals of the Bishop of Rome.
This notion he caused to prevail in Italy, and there the papal
power regained all it had lost. The two candidates for the Empire
he contrived for some time to keep without a decisive answer, by
means of evasions and deceptions as unscrupulous as they were
diplomatic. Yet he left no doubt in the minds of Otto’s friends
that he preferred the candidature of their monarch, though it
may have escaped their notice that his chief object was the dis
solution of the Empire, which had stood so firmly under the
dynasty to which Philip belonged. It did not escape the notice
of Walther, and he set himself to work against the papal machi
nations with that patriotic and impassioned enthusiasm with
which his love for the German Empire had inspired him. The
Pope seemed to him the incarnation of the anti-national spirit,
and only that king to be worthy of the name who strove once
more to realize the imperial ideal which had animated Germany
under Barbarossa and Henry. Such a monarch he thought at
this time he recognised in Philip. And since Philip, after his
coronation, had met with some successes in the field, and his
rival had been deprived of his chief support by the death of
Richard, it was not unnatural that he should look upon the
festival which Philip held, Christmas, 119.9, as the dawn of a
better era. The dawn of a better era, however, it was not, in
spite of Walther’s joyous song. The war which Philip was now
waging did not advance his cause, and once more we find
Walther at Vienna, reconciled to Leopold, perhaps, through the
intervention of Philip, or, perhaps, with some political commis
sion to the Duke. Meanwhile (1201) Otto advanced as far as
Alsace, and Philip invaded the district of Cologne, when the
long delayed decision of the Pope fell like a thunderbolt. Otto
was declared Emperor by the title of Otto IV., and Philip, with
his followers, was excommunicated. But though this bull
caused more anger than terror amongst the partisans of Philip,
its practical consequences were serious. Many supporters fell
away, and Walther gave utterance to his grief in a poem
�416
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
which deprecates the use of religious weapons for political
purposes.
“ I saw,” he says, “ with mine eyes the secrets of the hearts of men
and women. I heard and saw what each one says and does. At
Rome I found a Pope lying, and two kings (Philip and Frederick)
deceived. Then arose the greatest strife that has been or shall be.
The priests and the people began to take opposite sides, a grief beyond
all griefs. The priests laid down their swords and fought with their
stoles. They laid the bann on whom they would and not on whom
they should, and the Houses of God were desolate ” (pp. 81-3).
In March, of this year, those of Philip’s party who were faith
ful, renewed their oath of allegiance, and a formal protest against
the Pope’s decision was sent to Rome. The Pope received it
with consideration but firmness, and fresh successes followed the
arms of Otto. Philip sought to strengthen his connexion with
France, by an embassy, to which Walther was attached. As we
are at present more interested in Walther than in the history of
events, it will be well to mention a conjecture of some critics,
that it was upon his return from this journey that he wrote his
celebrated song (39) in praise of German ladies:—
i.
“ Ye should bid me welcome, ladies,
He who brings a message, that am I.
All that ye have heard before this,
Is an empty wind, now ask of me.
But ye must reward me.
If my wage is kindly,
Something I can tell you that[will please ;
See now what reward ye offer.
ii.
“ I will tell to German maidens
Such a message that they all the more
Shall delight the universe,
And will take no great payment therefor.
What would I for payment ?
They are all so dear,
That my prayer is lowly, and I ask no more
Than that they greet me kindly.
in.
“ I have seen many lands,
And saw the best with interest.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
417
Ill must it befall me
Could I ever bring my heart
To take pleasure
In foreign manners.
Now what avails me if I strive for falsehood ?
German truth surpasses all.
IV.
“ From the Elbe to the Rhine,
And back again to Hungary,
These are the best lands
Which I have seen in the world.
This I can truly swear,
That, for fair mien and person,
So help me heaven, to look upon,
Our ladies are fairer than other ladies.”
Philip’s supporters continued to fall away and to swell the
ranks of Otto ; his ecclesiastical adherents, terrified by the fulminations of the Pope, were amongst the earliest deserters.
Indeed, at one time it seemed likely that the whole party would
be broken up, but the judicious concessions which Philip made
to the Pope turned the current, and Philip’s cause was strength
ened by the accession of the Bishop of Cologne, who, perhaps,
found Otto ungenerous. At any rate he was now willing (upon
the receipt of pecuniary remuneration) to crown Philip and his
wife. This second coronation took place in 1205. We have no
poem by Walther in reference to it. In fact, he was losing faith
in Philip. The Emperor of Germany should have been a man
firm in will and ready in deed. Philip was not realizing this
ideal. A second coronation was in itself a confession of weak
ness. Bachmann imagines that there had even been a per
sonal quarrel between the king and the poet, but the ground
for such a belief seems hard to find. In J 208 Philip was
assassinated, and Otto was now universally recognised as
Emperor.
Without doubt Walther had been much disappointed in
Philip. He had grown up under Barbarossa and Henry, and
the magnificent ideas of the Empire had grown strong with his
growth. Those brilliant anticipations of supreme dominion in
German hands he expected to see fulfilled by Philip, and they
had not been fulfilled. On the contrary, the papal power, which
he detested, was leaving everywhere a contracted sphere for
another Empire, and, when a year before his death Philip be
came, as a matter of political necessity, reconciled to Innocent,
�418
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
Walther, whose ideal monarch was no king, but an emperor,
saw with a despair which is reflected in his poems, the dissolu
tion of his hopes.
From 12O4j to 1207 Walther resided at the Thuringian Court.
This is to be gathered from certain indications in his poems,
and from a consideration, of the history of events. Until 1204
Hermann the Landgrave had been on Otto’s, and Walther upon
Philip’s side. The poet’s residence at the Landgrave’s Court
could not, therefore, have belonged to an earlier period. The
exact length of its duration is uncertain : it was probably three
years. And had Walther been able to see the Empire in a
prosperous state, his days might have been as bright under the
“gentle Landgrave” as they had been at the Court of Vienna.
The Landgrave was not only gentle but generous. His Court
was a regular caravansary of warriors and minstrels. “ Day and
night,” says Walther, “there is ever one troop coming in, and
another going out. Let no one who has an earache come hither,
for the din will assuredly drive him wild.” The Landgrave’s
hospitality was, indeed, unbounded. “ If a measure of good
wine cost a thousand pounds no knight’s beaker would be
empty” (p. 99). And later too, upon another occasion, Walther
sings of his host, that he does not change like the moon, but
that his generosity is continuous. When trouble comes, he re
mains still a support. “ The flower of the Thuringians blossoms
through the snow” (p. 109).
About the year 12Q7 Walther found it necessary to leave the
Court. He had not been without enemies there, especially
amongst those of his own craft. Hermann was not to blame
for this, nor did Walther lose his favour; for later on we find
him again at the Thuringian Court. There seems to have been
two parties amongst the Minnesingers, and Walther was in the
minority. For the next two years Vienna was again his home,
and Leopold forgot or forgave the old quarrel that had been
between them. But he did not long remain here, and his life
until 1211 was unsettled, and was spent at various Courts. But
it will be necessary to bring down the history of the nation to
this period, for several great and important events had occurred.
The death of Philip was followed by an interval, in which
lawlessness and crime prevailed throughout the country. Pillage
and incendiarism desolated the inheritance of the Hohenstaufens,
and recalled to the recollection of the superstitious the comets
and eclipses which had appalled them during the previous year.
Many persons thought that the last day was approaching, and Wal
ther found the signs in the heavens corroborated by the unnatural
wickedness of man. “ The sun,” he says, “ has withheld his
light. Falsehood has everywhere scattered her seeds along the
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
419
way. The father finds treachery in his child; brother lies to
brother. The hooded priest, who should lead us to heaven, has
turned traitor.” It was indeed a dark time for Germany, nor
did it at first appear from what quarter amendment should come.
The real representative of the Hohenstaufen line was the young
Frederick, who was now fourteen years old, but this was no time
for a boy-emperor. Many of those who might have protected
his interests had already joined the party of Otto, a party that
openly took the supremacy when Otto declared his intention of
espousing Beatrice, the daughter of Philip, and the storm of
party passion for awhile abated. The interests of the Empire,
too, clearly pointed to Otto as Emperor. Walther saw this, for
Otto was by no means a man who would not follow up the advan
tages which his position gave him. Personally the poet could
feel little cordiality towards the new monarch, whose patronage
of song would little benefit the Minnesingers. And when Otto
received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope, in
Rome, it was accompanied by no strain of triumph from Walther.
This coronation was in the autumn of 1209. But Otto, instead
of leaving Italy to its ghostly monarch, remained there for a
year, in which time he restored the imperial authority in Nor
thern and Central Italy, and then marched into Southern Italy.
One result of this policy was inevitable. He was excommuni
cated by the Pope, who now put forward the young Frederick, as
king in his stead. Then first, when Otto was under the Papal
bann, did Walther step forward as his fellow combatant for the idea
of the Empire. As reconciliation with the Pope had estranged
him from Philip, so now it was a variance from the same autho
rity that was to place him upon close terms of sympathy with
Otto. And for the next two years we find Walther at the height
of his political influence. .
The Pope, not contented with the declaration of excommuni
cation, set in motion other measures for Otto’s destruction. Once
more he fanned the subsiding embers of civil discord in Ger
many. At the Pope’s call the Archbishops of Mayence and
Magdeburg, the King of Bohemia, the Margrave of Meissen, and
the Landgrave of Thuringia, formed a confederation, whose
object was the deposition of Otto, and the elevation of Frederick
to the throne. This confederation was accomplished in the
autumn of 1211, and was joined by the Archbishop of Treves, and
the Dukes of Bavaria and Austria. In February of the following
year Otto returned from his victorious campaign in Italy once
more to German soil, and held a parliament at Frankfort.
In the political complications which followed these circum
stances, we find Walther an influential diplomatist, for it was
undoubtedly through his influence that the two princes of
�420
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
Meissen and Bavaria returned to their allegiance to Otto ; and
the princes themselves thanked him for his services upon that
occasion. Further : through his negotiations the crown of Bohe
mia was given to the Margrave's nephew, and to the Duke’s son
as consort the daughter of the Count Palatine, by which union
the Palatinate afterwards passed into the ducal family. These
important negotiations, and the results which attended them,
give us an adequate notion of Walther’s position at this crisis.
The time came when he found the Margrave forgetful (as even
monarchs may be) of former services, but he could still refer with
conscious dignity to the benefits he had conferred upon the Mar
grave’s family: “ Why should I spare the truth ?” he asks, “ for
had I crowned the Margrave himself the crown had even yet
been his” (p. 157).
But Otto had still important ’enemies. Amongst them was
the Landgrave of Thuringia. Whilst engaged in operations
against him he heard of the approach of Frederick, who with a
gathering retinue of supporters was gradually winning the whole
of the Rhineland and North Germany. In 1213 Frederick
ratified his submission to the Pope, and resigned all German
pretensions to the disputed territory in Italy. Thus for awhile
we have the curious spectacle of a Guelph fighting for that
Imperial idea which should have been the heirloom of the
Hohenstaufens, and a Hohenstaufen carrying the banner of the
Papacy.
Whilst thus the power of Frederick was increasing, and the
followers of Otto were falling away, Walther struggled both as
poet and politician against the Pope, and the corrupt use of
ecclesiastical power for political purposes. That he himself
respected the office of the clergy, and that his own religious
convictions were deep-seated, is certain. He viewed, however,
with aversion the struggle of the Papacy for temporal power,
and the humiliation of the German national spirit In a struggle
of this kind he seemed to see the decay of faith, and the immi
nent ruin of the Church herself, and his language to the Pope
was outspoken from the first. He bade him remember that he
himself had crowned and blessed the Emperor (p. 131) ; he
reminded the people that the same mouth which had pronounced
the bann had declared the blessing (p. 132) ; and he referred the
Pope to the scriptural command, that he should render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's (p. 133). The corruption of
the clergy he rebuked almost with the fire which afterwards was
to belong to Luther.
“ Christendom,” he says, “ never lived so carelessly as now. Those
who should teach are evil-minded. Even silly laymen would not com
mit their crimes. They sin without fear, and are at enmity with
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
421
God. They point us to heaven and themselves go down to hell. They
bid us follow their advice, and not their example.”
Again :—
“ The Pope our father goes before us, and we wander not at all from
his way. Is he avaricious ? So are we all with him. Does he lie ?
We all lie, too. Is he a traitor ? We all follow the example of his
treachery.”
And then he calls him a modern Judas. He accuses him of
simony, and hints at his collusion with infernal powers. Against
the Pope’s attempt to collect tithes in Germany he spoke out
strongly, and not without effect, for his poem on this subject
(116) aroused much bitterness.
Yet even in Otto, the Pope’s enemy, Walther did not find an
Emperor like those whose names he loved. His star waned
before that of Frederick. His manners were marred by an
unroyal boorishness; his Court was the scene of drunken and
disorderly revels, and the flower of poetry no longer blossomed
in its ungracious precincts. In 1214 Walther joined the party
of Frederick. With this new allegiance closes the dependent
period of Walther’s life, for Frederick presented him with a
small estate, which he enjoyed until his death. His first feeling
was one of intense delight, and he celebrated the event in a
strain of fervent gratitude (150). However, in the interval
stretching from 1217 to 1220 he does not appear to have resided
there. Probably he did not find it so valuable as he at first
imagined it to be, when he sang his paean as a landholder.
There were ecclesiastical claims upon it, and he was in no mood
to satisfy them with equanimity. At any rate he determined,
after the residence of a year or two, to betake himself to the
Court of Vienna. It was no longer that brilliant home of poets
and fair women which it had once been. The Duke Leopold
was absent in the Holy Land: his two youthful sons were in
need of an instructor and guardian, and it is probable that until
the return of their father Walther undertook their instruction.
In 1219 Walther greeted the Duke with an ode of welcome
(152), and this is followed by a sarcastic poem (120) directed
against the miserly habits of the Austrian nobility. This poem
may perhaps indicate the reason why Walther left the Court of
Vienna, but all reasoning here rests upon conjecture. A quarrel
between himself and Leopold has been surmised, but upon
insufficient grounds. Then, in 1220, we find him at the Court
of Frederick II. His political muse had been silent since
his adoption of Frederick’s cause: his vehement protestations
against the papal influence were hushed : he aided in no agita
tion for the imperial cause. This silence was probably in
[Vol. CI. No. CO. J—New Series, Vol. XLV. No. II.
TF
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The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
accordance with Frederick’s wishes. Honorius III. was now
upon the Papal throne, a man of a different disposition from
that of Innocent.
Four important subjects were still matters of consideration
between the Papal and Imperial Courts:—Firstly, the separation
of the Italian and German crowns; secondly, the supremacy of
Lombardy; thirdly, the succession to Matilda; and fourthly,
the fulfilment of Frederick’s promise to enter upon a crusade.
And so long as no open breach had been made in the friendship
of Pope and Emperor, and whilst Frederick was furthering his
views more by policy than war, there was no room for the efforts
of Walther. From this time, however, till 1223 we find several
political odes dictated by his sympathy with Frederick. After
this period he returned to his own estate, and henceforth his
mind seems to have been occupied with religious ideas and the
support of the Crusaders. He did not cease to urge the German
princes to that holy undertaking. Frederick had, long before,
promised Innocent that he himself would lead an army to the
East; he had delayed to do so during the life of Honorius; he
was punished for his delay with excommunication by Gregory IX.,
and set out upon the crusade in 1228. Amongst his followers
was Walther the Minnesinger.
For it is clear that the bright dream of a restored Empire,
which once filled the poet’s mind, had now given place to
another feeling. Fainter and fainter the hope had grown
which inspired so many of his songs. Barbarossa could not
come again; at least not now, and there was no comfort remain
ing, except in religion. An overwhelming longing for the Holy
Land seized him. The last winter a terrible storm had swept
over the country. What else could it denote than the anger of
God at the negligence of Christians who left the Infidel in
undisturbed possession of his Holy City ? The bands of pilgrims
who passed through town and village did not fail to warn those
who lingered that they were incurring the divine wrath. Terror
and enthusiasm took possession of all, and Walther, old and
worn as he was, left once more his home and his repose. His
steps were turned towards the Alps. He travelled through the
Bavarian Oberland, and the Inn Valley, until he came to the
Brenner Pass. There at the foot of the hills lay the place of his
birth, a place which he had not visited since his boyhood. And.
here he wrote the renowned poem (188) which touchingly and
truthfully depicts his feelings:—
“Ay me! Whither are vanished all my years ? Has my life been
indeed a dream, or is it all true ? Was that aught whereof I
believed it was something? Nay, I have slept and knew it
not.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
423
“ Now I have awakened, and no longer know that which of old was as
familiar to me as mine own hand. People and land where I grew
up from a child, these are become strange to me, as though what
is past had never been.
“ They who were playmates of mine are feeble and old; that which
was wild land is planted and trained; the woods are felled. Only
the rivulet flows as it flowed of old ; otherwise my sorrow were
fulfilled.
“ I scarce win a greeting from those who once knew me well; the
World has become ungracious. Of old I had here many a happy
day ; all has fallen away like the print of a stone on the waters,
alas! for evermore.
“ Ay me ! there is a poison in all sweetness. I see the gall above the
honey. Outwardly the World is fair hued, white and green,
inwardly she is black and dark, and coloured with the colour of
death.
“ Yet if she has misled any one, let him take this to heart, for he may
with slight service be free from great sin. Look to it, knights ;
this touches you. Bear the light helm and thering-linked pano
ply of arms;
“ Also the strong shield, and consecrated sword. Would God that I,
too, were worthy to join in the Crusade. Then should I, for all
my poverty, become most rich, though not in land nor lordly
gold;
“ But I should wear that eternal crown, which the simple soldier may
win by his own spear. Could I but fare that happy journey
oversea, then would my song be ‘Joy!’ and never more ‘Ay
me !’ nor ever more ‘ Alas !’ ”
If Walther sang joyous songs after his return from the
Crusade, these songs are no longer to be found. We cannot
doubt, as has been doubted, that he accompanied the expedition
to the Holy City. Two devotional poems (78, 79) remain, which
were probably written later, but they are not songs of triumph.
His voice does not reach us any more; only the grave at
Wurzburg gives further indications of his fate. For he died,
as they say, in 1229, at the age of seventy-two.
Yet another pleasing memorial. In his will the poet left
a sum of money to provide seed which the birds might gather
every day upon his grave. And four holes for water (still to be
seen) were scooped in the stone that covered him. The birds
no longer derive any benefit from his legacy, it is commuted
into a dole which upon his birthday is given to the choristers of
the Church.
It has already been indicated that Walther’s poems fall into
Ff2
�424
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
two divisions, “Lieder” (songs) and “Spriiche” (poems.) These are
different both in form and purpose. A Lied was intended to be
sung to a musical accompaniment; a Spruch was to be read
or recited. The form of a Lied was artistic and severe, that
of a Spruch admitted of anomalies. Their subjects were also
different. The Lied chanted a lover’s hopes and fears, welcomed
the Spring and Summer, bemoaned the Winter, or a lady’s cold
ness ; the Spruch dealt with ethical situations, or, as is mostly
the case in Walther’s poems, expressed strong political convic
tions. A Minnelied was a complex work of art. It comprised
three elements, which may be named, after the German analysis,
the tone, the time, and the text. The tone was the rhythmical
form or metre into which it was thrown ; the tune was the melody
to which it was sung; the text was the verbal wordingof the poem.
A Minnesinger must, therefore, be artist, musician, and poet. Of
the three elements the tone was almost the most important, for it
was no traditional lyric form, but in each case the invention of the
individual poet. No poet could creditably appropriate another’s
metre, nor could any poet repeat without danger to his reputa
tion the same tone upon several occasions. Hence the infinite
variety of tones which characterize the poems of Walther. But
in all this variety one rule prevails—the rule that each stanza
should have three parts (two Stollen and an Abgesang). Each
stanza begins with corresponding portions, and concludes with a
third, differing metrically from the others. To some of Walther’s
poems this triple character is wanting. We may unhesitatingly
assign them to a very early period of the writer’s life. The
following simple little Minnelied is an example :—
“ Winter has injured us every way :
Copseland and woodland are russet and grey,
Where many voices rang merry and gay.
Ah, would that the maidens could come forth to play,
And the birds again carol their roundelay.
“ Would I could slumber the winter through ;
Now, when I waken my heart is low,
In winter’s kingdom of ice and snow.
God knows that at last the winter must go;
Where the ice lingers now flowers will grow.”
To an early period also belongs the poem already referred to,
“ Under der Linden.” It is, perhaps, impossible to reproduce in
English verse the delicate music of this airy lyric. The follow
ing is a literal translation. It preserves the triple division of the
tone:—
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
i.
“ Under the lindens,
On the heather,
Where the couch of us two was,
You may discover,
Both beautiful
Broken flowerbells and grass,
By the woodside in the vale.
Tandaradei,
Sweetly sang the nightingale.
ii.
“ I went, I hastened
To the meadow;
Thither my love had gone before.
There was I welcomed
Lady Mary!
That I am happy evermore.
Did he kiss me ? A thousand times,
(Tandaradei),
See how red my lips are yet.
hi.
“ There he had fashioned
A beautiful
Flowercouch and bed of flowers ;
And laughter arises
In inmost heart,
If any one passes that way;
By the roses he may well
(Tandaradei)
See yet where my head was laid.
IV.
“ That he lay beside me,
Should any know,
(0 God forbid !) I were ashamed.
And what he did with me,
No one—never—
Shall know but he and I alone,
And one dear little bird that sang
Tandaradei,
And he will ever be true.”
425
�426
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
In reference to this poem, Simrock has remarked that the
folksong also is not without instances of lyrics, whose simplicity
throws the magic light of innocence upon situations which would
be intolerable in any other. But in reality to raise a moral
question upon this artless song is wholly inappropriate: the
difficulty for a modern reader is to appreciate the subtle delicacy
and infinite reserve which characterize Minne poetry. To name
his lady’s name was deemed a shameless breach of good taste in a
lover ; and Walther has one indignant poem addressed to those
who sought with some importunity to win such a secret from
him (19). In another graceful little poem (21), he speaks of
his eyes as ambassadors to his lady, ambassadors that return
always with a kindly message. But these eyes are not those of
his corporal vision, for they have long been unblessed by behold
ing her ; they are the eyes of his mind.
“ Es sint die gedanke des herzen min.”
“ Shall I,” asks the poet, “ ever be so happy a man as that she
shall gaze upon me with eyes like mine?”
It was not much, indeed, that the Minnesinger asked from his
lady. That she should smile upon him when he greeted her, or
that, if others were by, she should at least look toward the place
where he stood. A glance threw him into an ecstacyof delight,
yet if his lady endured the presence of other admirers he sank
into the depths of despair. Thence again he rose buoyantly
with the slightest straw of hope. Here is the immemorial
love-oracle (24):
i.
“ In a despairing mood,
I sat me down and pondered.
I thought I would leave her service,
Had not a certain solace restored me.
Solace it may not rightly be called. Alas, no,
It is indeed scarcely a tiny comfort,
So tiny that if I tell you you will mock me,
Yet one is comforted by a little, he knows not why.
ii.
“ Me a blade of grass has made happy,
It tells me that I shall find favour.
I measured this selfsame little blade,
As of old I have seen children do.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
427
Now listen and mark if it does so again.
‘ She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she does not, she does.’
As oft as I have done it, the result is good,
That comforts me ; but one must have faith, too.”
Who the lady was whom Walther wooed is unknown now, if
it was known in his time. It has been conjectured that she
was of low birth, and the following poem (14) gives some
ground for the conjecture. Walther’s treatment of the sub
ject is different from the way in which Horace handled a subject
of similar nature.
i.
“ Maiden, heart beloved of me,
God give thee ever help and aid ;
And were there any dearer name,
That would I gladly call thee.
What can I dearer say than this,
That thou art well beloved of me ? Alas! ’tis this that pains me.
n.
“ They taunt me oft that I
Turn to a lowly maid my song.
That they can never know
What love is, is their punishment.
Love never came to those
Who woo for wealth or beauty. 0 what love is theirs ?
ill.
“ Hate often follows beauty ;
Be none too eager for it.
Love is the heart’s best tenant,
Beauty stands after love.
’Tis love makes lady fair,
Beauty can not do this, it never made lady fair.
IV.
“ I bear it as I have borne
And as I shall ever bear it.
Thou art fair and wealthy enough,
What can they tell me of this ?
�4'28
The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
Say what they will, I love thee.
The crystal ring that thou givest is better than royal gold.
*
v.
“ If thou art faithful and true,
Then I am thine without fear;
Thine—that no sorrow of heart
Can come against me by thy will.
If thou art neither of these,
Then thou canst never be mine. Ah me, should this happen to be!”
In another poem (17), however, he praises his lady’s beauty
with much enthusiasm. The following stanza runs more lightly
into the mould of English verse :—
“ God formed with care her cheeks so bright
And laid such lovely colours there,
Such perfect red, such perfect white,
Here tinted rose, there lily fair,
That I will almost dare to say
On her with greater joy I gaze
Than on the sky and starry way.
Alas ! what would my foolish praise ?
For if her pride should grow,
My lip’s light word might work my heart some bitter woe.”
But in fact it is useless arguing from these poems to the actual
circumstances of the poet’s life. The Minne of this period was
after all rather a subject of the imagination than a passion of
the heart. The nameless lady whose praise a poet sang, be
longed to the ideal portion of his life. We find nowhere among
the poems of the Minnesingers songs which celebrate what we call
“ domestic happiness,” or which look forward to nuptial union.
The ideal and the real were kept widely sundered by the knights
and poets of Minne. In actual life the poet composed and sang
these Lieder at the court of some noble patron, whose approval
was his reward. Often he sang, too, with the hope of receiving
a more substantial recognition, the gift, perhaps, of a small estate
where he might settle, and marry the daughter of a neighbour
ing vassal landholder. For her, however, there were certainly
neither Stollen nor Abgesang. She reared his children, and
directed his frugal household. She managed the estate in sum* A glass ring for pledging a lover’s faith was not unfrequently used in the
Middle Ages by the poorer classes.
�The Greatest of the Minnesingers.
429
mer whilst he visited his patrons, gave orders to his servants and
herself set arrow to bow, if any burglarious miscreant attacked
the house. Possibly the poet appreciated what she did, and was
a good husband and father. But the domestic life lacked poeti
cal utterance ; it was not within the region of the art of the
time. Hence there is an artificial atmosphere about the whole
circle of Minnesong. It does not come into close contact with
real life. It is, if not in opposition, at least in contrast with the
masculine and adult energy by which the German character of
the Middle Ages was marked. Minnesong was of the court,
courtly. It sprang, it is true, from the same source as the great
folk-epic of Siegfried and Brunhild, but the waters of that fer
tilizing stream were diverted now to rise in the private fountains
and tinkling cascades of royal gardens. If Walther’s muse had
been confined to this line of poetry alone, the poems which he
has left us would amply have justified the title which has been
assigned him in this paper. But his large and earnest nature is
inadequately commemorated in such a title. He was the
greatest of the Minnesingers, and he was much more. He
was a politician penetrated with the idea of the necessity of
German union. In his maturer years he applied himself more
and more rarely to the composition of Lieder, and in the later
works there is breathed a very different spirit from that which
animates the lyrics of the Court of Vienna. We find in them
the real life of the poet, as we should expect to find it, when a
poet is possessed by an idea which is neither selfish nor small.
The idea which possessed Walther was a great one, and has
never been absent from the best minds of Germany, the idea of
national union. What suffering, what immense power run to
waste would have been spared that noble country, if the dream of
our Minnesinger had been realized five centuries ago. This
was not to be. Perhaps even now the full attainment is distant.
But it is well for his countrymen to look back upon his pen
sive figure seated, as shown in the Paris manuscript, in the atti
tude of deep thought.
M Ich saz uf eime steine
Und dahte bein mit beine,
Bar uf sast’ ich den ellenbogen;
Ich hete in mine hant gesmogen
Min kinne und ein min wange.
Do dahte ich mir vil ange,
Wes man zer werlte solte leben.”
For strangely enough, the ecclesiastical and political contest
of the present day, has much resemblance to that which was
fought in the times of Walther. To-day, as then, Rome and the
�430
Moral Philosophy at Cambridge.
Empire dispute the point of supremacy. The question at issue
may be disguised and deceive even the wise and far-sighted.
But the present is not the first time that Rome has learnt to
throw an appearance of right over audacious and transcendant
injustice. Five hundred years ago she failed to blind to her
designs the vision of our Minnesinger, and now-a-days, happily
there are men numerous enough and strong enough to be true to
the spirit of these poems of Walther, and to insist upon wrest
ing from the hands of Rome, at least the national education
of their children.
“ Tiuschiu zuht gat vor in alien.”
Art. VIII.—Moral Philosophy
at
Cambridge.
First Principles of Moral Science. A Course of Lectures
delivered in the University of Cambridge. By Thomas
Rawson Birks, Knightsbridge, Professor of Moral Philo
sophy. London : Macmillan and Co. 1873.
EARLY forty years have passed since Mr. Mill, in his review
of Professor Sedgwick’s celebrated Discourse, declared that
“ the end, above all others, for which endowed universities exist,
or ought to exist, is to keep alive philosophy.” The “ studies of
the University of Cambridge” in 1835 were not the studies of
the present year. In every department there has been progress.
Great reforms have been instituted from without: those which
have proceeded from within have still been greater. Unattached
students have received recognition. Dissenters, at first admitted
within college precincts for study and then allowed to graduate,
after many years of probation have been placed on a footingof equa
lity in the competition for college fellowships. The badge ofcreed
has been abolished: the stigma of sex is passing away. Lec
tures and Examinations for Women have been inaugurated, and
there is a fair prospect of the entire removal, at no distant time,
of the intellectual disabilities under which they still labour.
University influence has been extended far beyond the boundaries
of Cambridge by the institution of Local Examinations; and
more recently still, by the official establishment of Courses of
Lectures by university men in provincial towns. New professor
ships have been founded. Degrees are conferred for proficiency
n Moral and in Natural Science. The course of study for the
�1875]
The Civil Service.
of obtaining a good article. By the
time this number is in the reader’s
hands the intentions of the Govern
ment may possibly have been ex
pressed, and whether it determines
to try the scheme of the Commis
sioners at first upon some one office
as an experiment, or to let the
matter drop as one beyond its
energies and strength, it is certain
that the warm thanks both of the
Civil Service and the public are
due to Dr. Lyon Playfair and his
colleagues for the ability with which
they have sifted an almost over
whelming mass of evidence, and for
the courage with which they have
exposed what the real grievances
are under which the public service
suffers.
But though, in our opinion, such
thanks are due, it is evident that,
so far as the Civil Service is con
cerned, they have not been generally
accorded. Mr. Farrer, in the Fort
nightly Review for May has forcibly
answered the three principal objec
tions which appear to have been taken
to the recommendations of the Com
missioners, and though he seems to
attach more weight than we should
to such of the opinions of the Service
as a.re ‘ expressed by their organs
in the press,’ it is undoubtedly a
fact that the report has been re
ceived with much disfavour.
In this, however, the Com
missioners have only shared the
VOL. XI.—NO. LXVI.
NEW SERIES.
729
common fate of all who attempt to
reform professions. The obstinate
resistance offered by the Proctors
to the reformation in Doctors’
Commons will be remembered by
many ; the gloomy predictions with
which the Abolition of Purchase
was greeted by the Colonels in and
out of Parliament are still fresh in
the memory of all. But it is to
be hoped and expected that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, if
clearly convinced that the proposals
of the Commissioners are really
sound and salutary, will have the
courage of his opinion, and will not
sacrifice a national reform to noisy
professional clamour.
Individual
cases of hardship should be met by
liberal or even lavish compensation,
rather than be allowed to constitute
arguments for continuing abuses in
the Public Service.
The Civil Service of England
deserves good and generous treat
ment at the hands of the country.
It has never been servile like that
of Russia; it has never been
‘ bureaucratic ’ like that of France ;
it has never been corrupt like that
of America ; and if the abuses in it
be swept away and steps be taken
to supply it with proper organisation
and payment, it will be in the future,
even more than it has been in the
past, a legitimate source of pride
and strength to the Nation and
Sovereign it serves.
A. C. T.
3 E
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The greatest of the Minnesingers
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: p. 406-430 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Review of Deutsche Classiker des Mittelalters, Mit Wort und Sacherklarungen. Begrundet von Franz Pfeiffer, Erster Band, Walther von der Vogelweide. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1870 and Des Leben Walthers von der Vogelweide. Leipzig: B.G. Trubner, 1865. From Westminster Review 45 (April 1874).
Publisher
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[s.n.]
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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CT38
Creator
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[Unknown]
Subject
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Book reviews
Germany
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The greatest of the Minnesingers), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
German Literature
Germany
Minnesingers